Drama Film - Early Film-1950s

Early Film-1950s

In the early years of cinema, melodrama held sway, as the transition from silent cinema's pantomime left film with a more presentational manner. In the 1950s, however, the arrival of stage actors like Marlon Brando, trained in more naturalistic techniques, slowly changed drama to a more realistic tenor. A Streetcar Named Desire is considered a pivotal film in this development. By the late 1970s, melodrama was nearly finished as an overt genre, as the hunger for realism dominated film in groundbreaking movies like Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets.

From the silent era to the 1950s, Dramas were tools to teach the audience. Films like The Grapes of Wrath (1940) show the effects of the depression. Citizen Kane (1941) was said by Orson Welles to not be a biography of William Randolph Hearst, but a composite of many people from that era. In the 1950s, began a rise in well-known dramatic actors. Montgomery Clift, Glenn Ford, James Dean, Bette Davis, and Marilyn Monroe were notable dramatic actors. Dramatic Films focused on character relationships and development. All About Eve (1950) focused on women, and their relationship with men. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) displayed teenage angst. Films like 12 Angry Men (1957) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959) show the inner workings of a courtroom.

Some of the most critically acclaimed drama films in Asian cinema were produced during the 1950s, including Yasujirō Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953), Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (1954), Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), Guru Dutt's Pyaasa (1957), and the Akira Kurosawa films Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952) and Seven Samurai (1954).